The project to fill in four of the Lagoon’s 19 acres has been postponed for logistical reasons, Vice President for University Relations Alan Cubbage said Thursday.
When administrators announced the construction plan for the Lagoon three weeks ago, they said construction would begin today. But administrators must first decide how to transport the fill before construction can start, Cubbage said. He declined to say when construction would begin.
“March 1 was a target date, but it’s not an absolute deadline,” Cubbage said. “There are a lot of variables in this equation.”
Evanston officials had expressed concern about the routes the trucks carrying the materials would take because only certain roads have been designated as legal for them.
Evanston’s director of community development, James Wolinski, said it will take seven to eight weeks to transport all the fill, which he described as beach sand. About 40 trucks will carry 175 loads a day from Des Plaines and Bensonville using Emerson and Dempster streets and Chicago and Central avenues.
The first shift would most likely try to get through before rush hour starts at 8 a.m., Wolinski said. The loads will come through the four streets each day, split up into four time intervals. Under city ordinance the trucks can use Evanston streets only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Cubbage declined to name the contractor NU is working with, citing NU’s right as a private university not to disclose the information, but Wolinski said Des Plaines-based F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen Inc. will do the construction. Officials at the large contracting company were unavailable for comment Thursday.
City officials on Tuesday approved NU’s last necessary construction permit, for which the university paid about $22,000, Wolinski said.
Evanston aldermen had recommended delaying approval for the permit, which authorizes delivery of the sand through city streets and the metal sheeting for dividing the Lagoon.
Wolinski said the city had to confirm with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the Lagoon is not a waterway used by the United States, as well as talk to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. NU received an IEPA permit in October.
Evanston’s structural engineer examined the project’s metal sheeting and deemed it within the city code, he said.
“At that point, there was no way not to issue the permit,” Wolinski said. “They as a property owner have the right.”
The metal sheeting must be in place by May 22, creating a “sea wall,” Wolinski said. The filling should be done by the fall, he added.
About 240 parking spots and open space will initially cover the filled-in land. The land will eventually hold at least four buildings. Wolinski said NU must apply for another permit if administrators want to put parking or any other structures on the land.
Although he said he was happy to hear of the delay, Northwestern Open Campus Coalition President Neil Helbraun said student outcry over the construction probably did not influence administrators’ decision.
But he expressed concern that administrators would start construction when students students are away from campus or taking tests and don’t have a chance to react.
“My biggest fear is they’re going to start during finals week or on Spring Break, and we won’t have anything to say about it then because we’ll have finals or we won’t be here,” said Helbraun, a Weinberg senior.
